Both parties were asked about possible North Sea job losses during a press conference, to which both companies said job cuts might have to occur if the deal did not go ahead.

Shell's CEO Ben van Beurden also declined to rule out redundancies in the North Sea from the deal, even though he said the company's commitment to this region was unchanged.

A Shell spokeswoman has since confirmed that the expected global synergies will "include job reductions and office consolidation".

Before the deal Shell already had some North Sea assets up for sale as part of a strategy to focus on key fields including the Claire and Schiehallion projects.

Its Aberdeen and offshore North Sea workforce is estimated to number 2400 including contractors while recent estimates are not available on BG's North Sea headcount.

While the deal opens up a long-sought commercialisation avenue for Arrow Energy (50:50 Shell and PetroChina) to supply its Queensland gas through BG's already-proven Queensland Curtis LNG plant, which was loading its tenth LNG cargo last week, any potential synergy-related job losses at Arrow could take some time to occur yet.

Arrow is unable to comment on the issue- with any job losses there to be a matter for its owners Shell and PetroChina to decide.